Life on Fast mode or mods

Keeping to its promise, the Fast has indeed made me proud and felt like road warrior! hahah

All in all, the car was superb in its power category. Was told its stock, but to be honest - I reckon it has been ECU remapped....WALD tune perhaps and well thrashed?!?!

On the other hand buying a used Fast can be challenging to maintain, after all it made me a very sensitive person to any issues that made me worried. Err, did I say worried? Yes. Since it is a performance car, safety comes first.

There are some experience that I would like to blog about and this may give some heads up to some potential future owners of GTI MK5 out there. Please note that these pointers are not applicable to all used Fast in the market.

Surprisingly, there are also those who known me and has asked the same questions about maintaining the Fast. My Fast was aged 4.5years with about 48k km milleage on it. Maintenance was supposedly fully done by an authorised service center at Sg Besi.

Let me share some of my pointers and experiences with it. :)

1. Experienced 2 major breakdown incidents. One of which was due to Steering Rack and the other the Alternator. Both of these incidents had caused me some traumatic on-the-fast-lane experiences, whereby electronically the car failed to function and the dashboard alert lights litted up like Christmas lighting! Well, I am lucky to have survived both incidences stranded beside the roadside and calling SOS for my car to be towed. One thing to look out for a potential failure on the steering rack is the scraping sound when doing full stationary turn from one side to another.

2. Other minor pointers are like:
- Cam Follower (this is only for MK5, a regular check will prevent engine rebuilding!)
- Coil Packs and Spark Plugs (for smooth acceleration)
- Fuel filter (may be due to poor petrol quality)
- DSG oil and filter change (do this every 40k km or earlier!)
- Air cond service (to avoid being choked up by the HAWT weather)
- Cooling fans (loud noise and malfunction)
- Wheel bearings (early wear and tear due to our infamous 'road craters')
- Shock mount and bearings
- Arm bush knocking noise from front
- Cabin noise (which is surprisingly normal)

3. DO NOT speed through flood - no matter how shallow it seems. DSG unit has a breather that takes in air and also any water that goes on top of it!

On the other hand, I would like to also share some cool mods I have done. More interesting than the things above! haha

Before the mods

After the mods

1. BBS CH 19" wheel - this is a cool upgrade to transform a Fast to a mean Fast! It was on met black with red pin stripe! YUM! This is one of my favourite that I traded in my Detroits for it! Later did I found out that the Detroits have great value and demand....hahah
2. 3M Crystaline window tint - not really effective considering its top of the line.
3. R-line fog grill - cool cosmetic upgrade!
4. Votex lower bumper lip - got this from Singapore. A cool cosmetic upgrade and a favourite for many!
5. Stage1+ Unitronic - ECU remap - one of the best bang for buck performance upgrade! Overtaking on the fast lane has been so addictive and effortless!
6. C-tech full underbody brace - nice mod to stiffen the chasis
8. RNS510 replica with HD touch screen - generally good but not very stable? Nice screen resolution.
9. Pivot XV - multimeter for oil, water and max boost readings. Cool gadget!
10. DIY 3M carbon fiber stickers on door and dashboard trims. Looks better than the plain aluminuim strips!

Oh great! After listing down I have indeed fast forward on all the mods done....what a productive life...hahah